Thank You

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The devil really is in the details—which explains why President Barack Obama is loath to discuss the minutiae of his proposal to curb the runaway entitlement spending that threatens to swallow up the federal budget.

The market acts as though the president is serious. Look at the price decline of gold. But then again, the market acts as if Kim Jung Un is faking insanity. The fact is, we don't know if Obama is faking. This is a brick in my personal wall of worry.

Obama resolutely promises to "do hard things and push my Democratic friends to do hard things." In return, he desires Republicans to do something equally as difficult for that antitax party—to raise $600 billion in new revenue by eliminating deductions used by oil companies, successful individuals, and agricultural conglomerates. This new "grand bargain" would replace the sequester, the across-the-board spending cuts from March 1 through 2021 that kicked in automatically when warring Democrats and Republicans failed to consummate a long-term fiscal deal. President Obama claims the budget restraint is bad because it will reduce beloved government services, like airport body searches. Better, then, for Democrats and Republicans to try to forge another compromise and adapt his biblically wise proposal.

"What I've said—very specifically, very detailed—is that I am prepared to take on the problem where it exists—on entitlements—and do some things that my party really doesn't like if it's part of a broader package of sensible deficit reductions," Obama said during a news conference that he held in order to blame the sequester on Republicans.

OBAMA IS NEITHER SPECIFIC nor detailed. The president claims that the same deal he put forward over the past two years remains in play. But he put forward several deals over that time frame, and the more recent ones are so vague that not even a ratings agency would put too much faith in them.

Republicans have no idea what Obama is talking about. We The People certainly have not a clue. Obama has shifted the political process from the halls of Congress to this city's back rooms and fancy restaurants; and equally disturbing, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have gone merrily along. The warring parties may not agree on tax and spending policy, but both sides are quick to keep the citizenry in the dark.

Obama's boldest entitlement-reform proposal was made privately to House Speaker John Boehner in 2011. Bob Woodward, the famed investigative reporter, obtained a copy of a July 19, 2011, draft by Rob Nabors, the president's deputy chief of staff, who at the time was working at the Office of Management and Budget. The president proposed cutting Medicare by $250 billion from 2012 to 2021 by—this is a shocker—altering the eligibility age and "adjusting premiums."

I contacted the White House and asked if the Nabors deal was the real deal. The White House referred me to a 2013 fact sheet that is a monument to the president's vagueness. He would ask "the most fortunate" to pay more for Medicare; reduce payments to drug companies by $140 billion over 10 years; and realize another $120 billion from "other health savings."

The president will come out with a budget in two to four weeks. For the plan to pass the laugh test, it will have to offer some specific solutions. If it doesn't, then I advise you to hedge your portfolio against insanity.